A SHjQEEJNG 

GUIDE TO 
PARIS AND 
LONDON 




FRANCES 
SHEAF ER 

WAX MAN 




/ / €.* 



Ocpighffl .. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



SHOPPING GUIDE 
TO 
"PARIS and LONDON 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/shoppingguidetopOOwaxm 



"'^\\ 



fra^c? 





Copyright by Stereo-Travel Co. 

The luxury stores, jewelers and perfumers are to be 
found on Regent Street 



a 

to 



eFz<wvceo 



9Uw Gtfozb 
1912 



-<+ 



.<•/* 



Copyright, 1912, by 
McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 



gC!.A3I9002 



1908 1910 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Introduction . . . . / 



Shopping in London 



Shopping in Paris . . . . 47 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 



A shopping crowd on Regent Street, 

London .... Frontispiece 

Facing page 

Cheapside, a shopping district of low 
prices 14 

Piccadilly Circus, one end of London's 
shopping district . . . . 28 

A view of Regent Street, London . 36 

The Place Vendbme, Paris . . 48 

Avenue de V Opera, Paris . . .60 

Paquin's, Rue de la Paix, Paris . 72 

Rue de Rivoli, Paris . . . .90 



el nkto&wcfaow, 



INTRODUCTION 

While London is certainly the shop- 
ping " paradise of men " just as 
Paris has long been acknowledged the 
" paradise of women," still both 
cities offer tempting attractions to 
voyagers of either sex, and the famil- 
iar aphorism, " London for men's 
clothes and Paris for women's," may 
occasionally be reversed. The two 
cities are not so far apart, despite 
race prejudices, but that their stand- 
ards sometimes overlap. Within the 



2 INTRODUCTION 

memory of the present generation, 
" Johnny Crapaud " wore shepherd- 
plaid trousers — with a French frock 
coat and a chimney-pot hat, to be sure 
— in the blissful belief that he looked 
" ver-ry Ainglich, ,, and this, long be- 
fore cosmopolitan King Edward with 
his warm French sympathies had 
brought about V entente cordiale. A 
good many centuries ago, also, French 
supremacy in feminine fashions was 
acknowledged by a stern British war 
censor, when he passed across the 
French and English fighting lines a 
dressed manikin, so that England's 
women would not have to await the 
termination of a war to know the 
changes in French styles. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

To-day a traveling woman may not 
deliberately go to London for French 
novelties, yet beautiful French blouses 
and model gowns may sometimes be 
picked up there out of season for a 
song. The choice London shops are, 
most of them, very small, and since 
they cannot carry a large stock, things 
are disposed of for what they will 
bring when it comes time to lay in a 
new supply. The women of Great 
Britain themselves will tell you that 
the time to look for bargains is late 
June. That is when they contrive, 
if they buy cautiously — and what 
English person does not? — to be in 
London. June marks the closing of 
the social season, at least so far as 



4 INTRODUCTION 

clothes buying goes, and it is just 
before the onslaught of summer tour- 
ists sends prices up again. So, anyone 
starting a European trip by way of 
England, will do well to profit by 
these conditions and make a tour of 
the little shops on Oxford Street and 
its tributaries. 

An American, accustomed to the 
orderliness of even the small stores 
of the small home towns, may at first 
find the shops of England and the 
Continent disconcerting. Things are 
so strewed about and piled up and 
hung up that it requires a " seeing 
eye " to pick out the good from the 
bad. The English way of putting all 
the choice wares in the window does 



INTRODUCTION 5 

not make for comfort in shopping, 
either; for the salespeople have a 
rooted objection to disarranging a 
window decoration, even to satisfy a 
customer. 

Still, that difficulty may be over- 
come with patience and persuasion, 
and it is not in the windows that you 
will find the real bargains, anyway. 
On a rack in a remote corner, soiled 
and very much mussed, you may 
come upon a lace coat of obvious 
French cut, and you will ask the 
saleswoman twice for the price when 
she tells you that it is marked fifteen 
shillings! You have seen similar 
garments at home, in the few shops 
that keep such finery, for no less 



6 INTRODUCTION 

than twenty-five dollars. Another 
obscure counter may be piled up with 
mussed blouses, whose interest the 
seasoned shopper will at once detect. 
Many of them will be the genuine 
prim English silks, which no Amer- 
ican woman of more elastic taste 
could bring herself to wear, but in- 
terspersed also will be dainty French 
embroidered models, often of lovely 
materials in exquisite shades, need- 
ing only a little freshening to make 
them quite new again. Five dollars 
may buy as many as three. 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 

The American woman, with but a 
few days to give to London shopping, 
may be much helped by a superficial 
knowledge of the sociological condi- 
tions which there gov- 

London ern that most allurin g 

Shopkeeper of feminine pastimes. 

In the first place, it 
must be remembered that the de- 
partment store, with its necessarily 
impersonal atmosphere, is a com- 
paratively recent institution in Eng- 
land. The small shop allows a 
more intimate relation between buyer 
and seller than is possible in the 



8 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

huge establishments of to-day. In- 
cidentally, some personal responsi- 
bility enters into even the most 
trifling business there transacted. 
The proprietor comes to know his 
customers and to make every effort 
to satisfy them: an effort, which, 
if it succeeds at all, breeds a cer- 
tain loyalty on the part of the cus- 
tomer toward the shop selected for 
patronage. 

Very likely, in time, with the com- 
bining and centralizing of all indus- 
tries, the day of the small shops will 
be over, even in conservative Eng- 
land: but things do not change there 
with the rapidity they do in America, 
which is why London still supports 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 9 

innumerable small shops whose re- 
spective merits must remain a mys- 
tery to all but the best informed of 
travelers. Londoners themselves, of 
course, have their favorite places to 
buy particular things, and many of 
them make a point of patronizing 
shops where their parents and grand- 
parents before them kept accounts. 
This is true also of all the inhabi- 
tants of the British Isles, and of 
people from the Colonies, who one 
and all cherish a kind of traditional 
shopping code which they can some- 
times be induced to pass on to a sym- 
pathetic American. 

The proprietor of the small Eng- 
lish shop has an inherited conviction 



10 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

that the people who come to see what 
he has to sell have need of a partic- 
ular article, which they 

T he intend to buy. Hethere- 

Insistent 

Salesperson fore ex P ects to make 

a sale, and this frank 

anticipation gives shopping in Eng- 
land a serious aspect, often discon- 
certing to the light-minded American 
tourist, who has no idea of buying 
anything not commandingly alluring. 
London salespeople, moreover, have 
an insistent way with them. They 
lack the suavity of manner of the 
Continentals, who have learned to 
cover their chagrin when a purchaser 
eludes them with a polite smile. The 
London salesman or girl can make a 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 11 

shopper who fails to buy feel very 
uncomfortable. This difference in 
the shopping cults of the two great 
English-speaking nations produces 
sometimes no little unpleasantness, 
because neither party to a shopping 
transaction understands the other's 
point of view. The salesperson is 
only perhaps " saving his head," for 
it is entirely possible that his posi- 
tion depends on his ability to force 
sales on an unwilling patron. The 
American naturally resents being 
obliged to disburse his travel funds 
on things he does not really 
want. 

When Self ridge's was first opened 
in London and advertised as an 



12 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

" American department store," all 
England predicted its failure. Lon- 
don had already a large 
' An Ameri- com k mat i on establish- 

CQ/Yl DcDCirt- 

ment Store " ment in Whiteley's, 
where they were fond 
of telling visitors that you could 
buy everything from " a pin to an 
elephant.' ' But Whiteley's was a 
British institution, and neither its 
arrangement nor its conduct was 
in any way different — except in 
scale — from any other of the famil- 
iar London shops. Self ridge's does 
not look in the least like London, 
once you are inside. It might be a bit 
of Twenty-third Street or Broadway 
set down in the British metropolis. 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 13 

Its aisles are wide, its displays are 
coherently isolated. It is entirely 
possible to find there what you are 
looking for, without delving through 
piles of irrelevant things in which 
you have no interest. Also the article 
which has perhaps caught your eye in 
a window setting is to be had from 
the general stock. You are per- 
mitted, even encouraged, to exchange 
any article which may not have been 
found entirely satisfactory on a home 
inspection, and this last privilege is, 
or has been until lately, unheard of 
in the native London shops. 

A young American woman, all 
ignorant of British etiquette on this 
point, once attempted to exchange 



14 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

some artificial flowers she had bought 
at a large Oxford Street store. She 
had decided to substitute a wing in 
the trimming of a hat. It was not 
long before she discovered what a 
faux pas she was making, but, in a 
spirit of adventure, she determined 
to carry the incident to its conclusion. 
The operation was exciting enough, 
and, before she emerged triumphant 
with the wing, she had been called 
upon to explain to no less than twelve 
persons of graduated importance that 
there was nothing the matter with 
the flowers except that she did not 
want them, and had simply changed 
her mind in the matter of her hat 
trimming. Her victory was in the 




Cheapside is an extension of High Holborn and is a 
shopping district of lower prices, but good values; 
a good place to buy gloves 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 15 

end only due to her national audacity, 

and the fact that she was set down 

and excused as one of the " mad 

Americans." 

It is not to be inferred, however, 

from these comparisons of methods, 

that shopping in Lon- 

. . don is altogether a dis- 

Amencan 
Spender agreeable experience. 

It is a business that 

has to be learned like any other, and 

the invasion of London by Self ridge, 

and the continual stream of visiting 

Americans has had its ultimate effect 

on stolid British customs. Too much 

good American money is spent in 

London each year for the London 

shopkeeper to question the American 



16 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

way of spending it, or willingly to 
antagonize his American patrons. 
But the traveler, intent on carrying 
away from London some of that city's 
" specialities " must go about getting 
them understanding^, which means 
that it is necessary to learn from a 
competent source where best the 
things he wants can be bought. If 
such information can be had from a 
seasoned Londoner, all the better. 
Baedeker devotes no less than eight 
pages to a classified list of recom- 
mended shops. The tourists' agen- 
cies keep the names of firms they 
know to be reliable for the benefit of 
their clients, and many of the Amer- 
ican travelers' associations have 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 17 

compiled through their members 
similar data. 

London, like all large cities, has 
its professional shopping guides, who 
may be of tremendous assistance to 
a person who means to spend large 
sums of money for important pur- 
chases. Few women, however, enjoy 
shopping with a guide, above all in 
a land whose language they speak — 
or nearly speak, for the London 
shopgirl has her own names for her 
stock, and an American looking for 
" shoe strings " Will perhaps have 
an amusing hunt, before she finds 
them classified as " li-cers." 

London has a time-honored repu- 
tation for certain products; woolens 



18 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

for example, and outing garments, 

gloves, flannels, all articles of men's 

apparel, hats, ties, 

London sticks, sporting goods, 

Specialties 

certain kinds of jew- 
elry, certain makes of china, cutlery, 
and the famous silver plate. These 
are all things better bought in London 
than almost anywhere else. 

Eeally it pays the traveler, who 
plans an extended tour, to wait to 
lay in his traveling supplies at Lon- 
don. The English are themselves in- 
defatigable " globe trotters," and 
they have learned from actual experi- 
ence what are the essential traveling 
necessities. Moreover, being a prac- 
tical people they make their things 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 19 

uncommonly well. Their stuffs are 
intended to last, and their trunks and 
bags to wear. Even their silks, 
linens and cottons are of a dur ability- 
unknown to most Americans, who are 
accustomed to buy for each season 
only. Quickly changing fashions dis- 
courage rather than induce with us a 
permanency of material. Not so in 
England. There, both the cut and the 
cloth of a raincoat or a tramper's suit 
are expected to endure through many 
a serviceable year. 

Eeady-made garments of good style 
and cut may be had at any of the 
larger London stores. Selfridge, of 
course, keeps them, and Peter Robin- 
son, also Whiteley's, which is, how- 



20 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

ever, a trifle out of the favorite Amer- 
ican shopping district, the familiar 
" West End," where most of the 
higher priced and more preten- 
tious shops are located. The firm 
of Debenham & Freebody of Cav- 
endish Square is considered by 
English people as expensive, but 
" high class," which means that 
the things sold there are abso- 
lutely reliable. These people make a 
specialty of outdoor garments, and 
their furs are said to be of irre- 
proachable quality. Eesident Lon- 
doners also warmly recommend Mar- 
shall & Snelgrove, another " draper " 
with salesrooms in Oxford Street. 
The English " draper " is our dry- 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 21 

goods merchant. Marshall & Snel- 
grove are general co stumers, but they 
are thought particularly good for 
silks and trimmings of every descrip- 
tion. They keep a very large stock, 
and supply most of the leading dress- 
makers. They always have a quan- 
tity of materials for mourning. They 
were one of the few London firms who 
had any mourning on hand to meet 
the rush when King Edward died, and 
when all London, including the visit- 
ing foreigners, hastened to provide 
themselves with the prescribed court 
black. 

A recommended notion store — 
called in London a " haberdashery,' ' 
— is Frederick Gorringe's in Bucking- 



22 A SHOPPING GUIDE 
ham Palace. Although the shop has 
various departments, supplying coats 
and skirts, hat and blouses, it is fre- 
quented more especially by Londoners 
for dress materials, gloves, ribbons, 
laces, and the many lesser commod- 
ities classified in trade as " usual 
wares." 

Dickens & Jones is another big dra- 
per's shop, a very good style, with 
the usual departments. All these 
stores conduct lunch- and tea-rooms, 
which are a great convenience to the 
shopper. Woolland's, for example, 
serves a delicious tea for 6d., and light 
luncheon for 1/. This shop is in an 
attractive part of London, between 
Piccadilly and Knight sbridge, op- 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 23 

posite Hyde Park, not in the more 
familiar West End, which, Londoners 
maintain, has been spoiled by its 
American patronage. Hence this 
Knightsbridge house has a special na- 
tive following, as has also Harvey 
Nicolls of the same quarter, and the 
Harrod stores in Brompton Eoad, a 
large and fine establishment, which 
impresses the English as very much 
up-to-date because of its " lounge " 
and writing-room, its post-office, and 
its new Georgian restaurant at the top 
of the building; all London novelties, 
not so new to Americans. 

Many London business men shop in 
the City, that territory which com- 
prises the very heart of the great 



24 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

English metropolis, and from which 
its vast expanse radiates. There are 
numerous tailors and outfitters in that 
practical quarter who are cheaper 
than those of the West End, and 
equally reliable. 

The booksellers and print shops of 
London have a distinct character — 
almost anyone would like to buy a 
coveted edition of a favorite author 
from John and Edward Bumpus in 
the Holborn Bars. Good prints are 
to be had of Deighton in the Grand 
Hotel Buildings, Trafalgar Square, 
and Frederick Hollyer of Pembroke 
Square makes a specialty of reproduc- 
tions of the modern English masters, 
especially the Pre-Raphaelites. 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 25 

One peculiarity of British busi- 
ness customs the American shop- 
per should know, and that is 
that the shopping-day does not be- 
gin in England as early as it does 
in alert America. London shops 
are seldom in good selling order be- 
fore half-past ten. Wednesday is a 
day to avoid shopping. That being 
matinee day at the theaters, many 
cheap excursion trains are run in 
from the country, bringing crowds of 
" trippers " to the shows and the 
shops. On Saturday after one 
o'clock most of the shops are closed, 
though some of them substitute 
Thursday as their weekly half-holi- 
day. These irregularities may prove 



26 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

upsetting to a hurried tourist, before 
they are understood and accepted as 
part of a new and unfamiliar com- 
mercial system. 

In buying ready-made garments, 
American women will find that the 

English cut is some- 
The 

English Cut what more narrow- 
chested than ours. 
Perhaps the two nations are of a 
different build; but, since the Cana- 
dians who shop in London complain 
of the same difficulty, it may be that 
the peoples of the newer countries 
carry their love of freedom into the 
fit of their clothing. At all events, the 
American shopper who buys coats or 
dresses in either England or France 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 27 

must get a larger size than she usu- 
ally wears, in order to arrive at the 
width of shoulders she is accustomed 
to. In France where the metric sys- 
tem is used, the markings must be 
read quite differently, and a person 
who is in the habit of buying a 36- 
inch waist will find one marked 46 
there none too large. 

Each of the larger drygoods stores 
of London has built up a reputation 
for some special thing. For example, 
Swan & Edgar keep pretty and mod- 
erate priced evening dresses. Cer- 
tain Americans who shop often in 
London buy there the small books of 
assorted needles, which are a conveni- 
ent adjunct of the sewing bag. The 



28 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

silks to be had of John Lewis & Com- 
pany are to be depended upon, and the 
blouses at Bourne & Holingsworth 
well repay investigation. Swears & 
Wells' Lilliputian House is noted for 
its children's clothing, just as Ham- 
ley's is for toys. 

The district which includes Oxford 
Circus, Eegent Street, New and Old 

Bond Street and Ox- 
The Popular ford gtreet ig the pop . 
Shopping 
District nlar tourist sll0 PP in g 

territory. The estab- 
lishments which line these streets 
vary considerably in the character 
and quality of their merchandise. 
The Eegent Street and Bond Street 
shops are more exclusive and conse>- 



— 




a 

OJ 

a 
I 



QJU 


"£j 






"& 


x 


Ph ns 


O 








cc 


<u 






co 


o 


0) 


z> 


* 


^ 


03 




5b 


^ 




oS 


_co 


02 


2 


P 


O 


o 


^ 


Jh 


3 
O 


O 


kI 


.* 










o 


-t- 3 


r- 


£ 


E3 


o 


cu 




0) 


^ 










o 




CO 


CO 
O 


cS 


• " 


a 


Q 


co 


7* 






O 


o 






O 


o 


►» 






CO 


r^ 


03 








c5 






SHOPPING IN LONDON 29 

quently more expensive. About Ox- 
ford Circus, things are cheaper, ex- 
cept at Jay's, which is now consid- 
ered by " smart " English people as 
a little old-fashioned, but always re- 
liable. Londoners go there for ex- 
pensive dress blouses, and also for 
their mourning outfits. On Eegent 
Street are the Liberty stores, very 
pleasurable places to visit. The Lib- 
erty stuffs, both for dresses and for 
decorative use, are now much sought 
after, and with justice too, since their 
beauty of design and of texture is 
quite exceptional. These materials 
are not to be duplicated anywhere 
else. The Liberty smocked frocks 
are by this time a sort of dress in- 



30 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

stitution, and very pretty and grace- 
ful they are too, for grown-ups as 
well as for children. 

There are of course in London, as 
also in Paris, certain dressmaking 
houses, whose names are as familiar 
to women interested in clothes as 
their own. Eedfern, for example, 
needs no introduction to an American 
woman. Many of the important 
French houses maintain branch stores 
in London. 

Every American man or woman 
expects to lay in a supply of good 
English gloves in London. These can 
safely be bought at any of the large 
stores, but Londoners themselves, 
particularly " oity men," patronize 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 31 

the London Glove Company in Cheap- 
side. There long white gloves cost 
but four shillings, and gloves for 
ordinary street wear are as low as 
two and six. This shop, which is on 
the second floor, designated in Eng- 
land as the first, also sells satisfac- 
tory stockings. 

Walpole's is a good place to buy 
linens, as are also the two Irish socie- 
ties. The Cross leather goods are 
known to most Americans. English 
people think well of them, but they 
also buy from Drew & Sons in Picca- 
dilly Circus. There is a small estab- 
lishment in St. Paul's churchyard, 
kept by one Hassall, where men who 
know go for their brushes, just as 



32 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

they buy their pipes, for which London 
is famous, at Loewe's in Haymarket, 
their hats at Heath's or Lincoln & 
Bennet's, and their sporting acces- 
sories at Gamage's. 

All England takes a sort of na- 
tional pride in the London co-opera- 
tive stores, which are 

Co-operative ., . , 

a, quite unique and pecu- 

liar to that big city. 
They were founded originally to force 
down the " high cost of living,' ' al- 
though their existence considerably 
antedates the now general agitation 
against this modern bugaboo. Ac- 
cording to their social positions and 
affiliations, English men and women 
belong to the Army and Navy, the 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 33 

Junior Army and Navy, or the two 
Civil Service societies. Since these 
organizations exist solely to keep 
prices down, their stores do actually 
sell at a smaller profit than the big 
shops can afford to allow themselves. 
A trifling yearly subscription is de- 
manded of all would-be purchasers, 
who must, however, be vouched for 
by members or shareholders. This 
regulation, while it is no doubt wise, 
is irksome to the stranger who can- 
not consequently make purchases at 
any of the stores except through a 
member friend. When, however, they 
are accessible, these are good places 
to go for outdoor garments, polo 
coats, men's ulsters, etc. They also 



34 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

sell very durable woolen underwear 
and stockings. 

The jewelry shops of London are 
attractive, though they have not the 
advantage of so elegant a setting as 
the Paris Rue de la Paix. Most 
English people seem to look upon 
the Goldsmiths ' & Silversmiths' Co. in 
Regent Street as the best of them all, 
though Hunt & Roskill and Wathers- 
ton & Sons have also their enthusias- 
tic clientele. Mappan & Webb's is 
always recommended by Londoners 
as a good place to buy plated things. 
Tiffany has a branch in London, as 
he has also in Paris, but American 
travelers, much as they may like to 
come upon the familiar home names 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 35 

in the streets of a foreign city, really 
prefer to buy from the shops which 
are as essentially and obviously Eng- 
lish as the old Tower of London it- 
self. This shopping where the na- 
tives do affords one of the pleasures 
of foreign travel, and a chance for a 
by-no-means frivolous study of na- 
tional race differences. There is a 
peculiar satisfaction in knowing, if 
you have decided to invest in some of 
the famous English cutlery, that you 
can get what you want at Verinder's 
in Ludgate Hill, just as any well-in- 
formed Britisher would do. 

Eather unexpectedly, as it happens, 
the things that have to do with the 
feminine toilet can be had in great 



36 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

variety in London, for English women 
take excellent care of their lovely 
complexions and their abundant hair. 
Makers of perfumery and hairdress- 
ers are innumerable in London. 
There are endless novelties in toilet 
creams, pastes, powders and all that, 
to be had from these people. False 
hair is well made in London, and also 
much worn, despite the 

n .. fact that there would 

Preparations 

seem to be not nearly 
so much need for it — even in a season 
when " rats " and " puffs " and 
" buns " are fashionable — among 
English women as among the more 
careless and less patient Americans. 
The confidential half-hour at bedtime 



..,.'W.,///;"/.: ; •/-" f 




SHOPPING IN LONDON 37 

over a glowing fire, with its " 120 
brush strokes, ' ' is no invention of the 
novelist who writes of English coun- 
try life. It is an established institu- 
tion, like the afternoon tea, and the 
tiresome duty of " putting the hair 
to bed " is thereby made the occa- 
sion for an intimate little visit, which 
might with profit be imitated by 
women of other nations who envy the 
blooming English belles their luxuri- 
ant tresses. 

EimmePs, in Eegent Street, is a 
favorite English perfumery house. 
Others are found about the Burling- 
ton Arcade, which is London's Palais 
Royal, a fascinating place, but not re- 
garded as entirely convenable for a 



38 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

woman to wander about in alone. 
Men go there to Martin's for sticks 
and gloves. 

Somewhat out of the crowded shop- 
ping quarter, and yet within walking 
distance is Tottenham Court Eoad, 
where are clustered many house fur- 
nishing establishments with substan- 
tial reputations. Maple is almost as 
celebrated as Waring & Gillow. 
Shoolbred is a house the English be- 
lieve in, though many other things 
than house furnishings can be bought 
there. The casual tourist will prob- 
ably not be especially interested in 
making purchases in this street, but 
a visit to the decorators may prove 
worth while, if only to learn how the 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 39 

English go about the business of 
house furnishing. One thing is no- 
ticeable, and instructive too, and it 
is that — thanks perhaps to the far- 
reaching William Morris movement — 
cheap furnishings are not necessarily 
bad in England. Since the cottage 
system of housing was started there, 
the decorators have seen possibilities 
in unpretentious dwellings, and, while 
they can furnish a palace if they are 
called upon, they are not above turn- 
ing their ingenuity and their artistic 
skill to such a humble problem as a 
workingman's home. 

Tottenham Court Eoad is in the 
interesting and old-fashioned Brit- 
ish Museum quarter. All about here 



40 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

are antique shops, old book shops, pic- 
ture dealers, even shops which brave- 
ly advertise that they 

Antique it j 

, * supply pedigrees and 

Book Shops coats of arms. It is a 

district with a flavor, 

and the leisurely traveler will enjoy 

browsing about its quiet streets. It 

bears a strong resemblance to certain 

old squares and streets of Boston and 

of Philadelphia, both cities which 

were influenced by the same British 

taste which built Berkley Square, and 

both sufficiently conservative to have 

left unspoiled here and there some 

of their architecture of pre-Eevolu- 

tionary days. 

Americans, both men and women, 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 41 

who are shopping or sight- seeing in 
London — or both— are not long in ac- 
quiring the English afternoon tea 
habit. The British disposition of 
meal hours forces them to it. A wait 
of seven hours between lunch and din- 
ner, especially when one is actively 
going about, produces an insistent 
void that calls for something, if it 
is only tea and cakes. It is amazing 
how the national beverage of England 
does revive a flagging enthusiasm. 
The English of course know and ac- 
knowledge its stimulating effects. 
" Poor mother," they will tell you, 
" she's a bit down. She hasn't had 
her tea yet." And " mother " is not 
the only one who is saved from wilt- 



42 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

ing before the day is done by a cup 
of tea. Many an American man, who 
would at home rather despise tea as 
an almost exclusively feminine drink, 
soon learns its comforting effects and 
is ever after willing to partake of it 
for its own sake, and not only at the 
urging of a debutante who pours at 
a friend's reception. Whatever the 
medical people may say of the insidi- 
ous, undermining influences of this 
brew of the East, so far neither the 
British complexion nor their nerves 
seem to have suffered very much from 
its copious use. And they do take it 
strong, too ! — always with milk, not 
cream, be it noticed, nor yet lemon, 
and accompanied by thin slices of 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 43 

bread and butter and tea cake. It is 
not a bad little snack, and it costs 
very little. London is dotted with 
small cake shops where anyone can 
stop at the giving-ont point for the 
needed " pick-me-up." Of course 
there are expensive tea shops, which 
have a particularly smart patronage, 
like Bumpelmayer's, the same firm, 
whose Rue de Rivoli tea room in Paris 
is a fashionable rendezvous, during 
the season there. These people sell 
the most delectable French pastries 
and small cakes. Another fashionable 
tea room is Buszard's, which has an 
enduring renown for its wedding 
cake, a commodity visiting Amer- 
icans, unless they aspire to a London 



44 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

wedding, will scarcely have need of 
acquiring. 

The question of eating in London is 
always rather serious. It is by no 
means either so entertaining or so 
easy to find there good, inexpensive 
restaurants, as it is in Paris. Above 
all is the traveler who arrives in Lon- 
don of a Sunday tried 

. T r with British culinary 

in London J 

and hospitable lim- 
itations. No one eats, apparently, on 
Sunday, except by previous appoint- 
ment. Even the railway lunch rooms 
are closed. One solution of the meal 
problem is the somewhat bald plan of 
arranging for everything at a hotel 
or boarding house. But that leaves 



SHOPPING IN LONDON 45 

unexplored all the fascinating and 
gay life of the cafes and restaurants, 
an ever-entertaining element whether 
viewed by a critical onlooker or a 
jovial participator. London has some 
world-renowned hotels, places which, 
at certain seasons of the year, are the 
meeting places of wealth and royalty. 
These, according to his means, a tour- 
ist can visit. 

There is an interesting foreign 
quarter in Soho, where that great 
army of talent of all sorts, which 
makes London its headquarters, is 
wont to congregate. Some excellent 
French and Italian dinners are served 
there, but an alien must of course be 
guided by some resident artist or lit- 



46 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

erary friend to the choicest of these 
retreats. No lady, obviously, could 
attempt such an expedition unaccom- 
panied by a man. Ladies can still go 
to the Trocadero, where it is well to 
engage a table in the gallery in ad- 
vance. The clientele is gay and 
amusing, but does not bear too close 
examination. Dinner is five shillings 
and seven and six, the difference be- 
ing not in the food, apparently, but in 
the flowers on the tables, a distinction 
which in France would be made in- 
stead in the quality of the wines 
served with the meal. 



SHOPPING IN PAEIS 

The amount of enjoyment a visiting 
American will get out of a stay 

in either London or 
English parig depends largely 

and French 

Stules on ^e ^dividual tem- 

perament. A rough 
classification always gives the mas- 
culine preference to London and the 
feminine to Paris, and a plausible ex- 
planation is usually found in the rela- 
tive shopping advantages of the two 
cities. But it is probable also that 
there still lingers in the male 
American's mind a little of the 
inherited British contempt for the 

47 



48 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

Latin man. No Englishman, and 
equally no American, would willingly 
set out to provide himself with a 
tight-fitting, braid-trimmed " cut- 
away " such as the well-dressed 
Frenchmen wear. As for the pointed 
French shoes and soft kid gloves, they 
are objects of ridicule and scorn. 
French masculinity finds its expres- 
sion in other ways than dress, but no 
hurried tourist has either the oppor- 
tunity or the perspicacity to discover 
it. Therefore the American turns to 
London for his styles, and while he 
may prefer his clothes of a looser fit 
than do his English cousins, he would 
not consider that he was belittling 
himself if, at a pinch, he were obliged 




Copyright by Stereo Travel Co. 

The column at the Place Vendome marks the junc- 
tion of the two greatest shopping streets, the Rue 
de la Paix and the Rue St. Honore. Most of the 
shops retailing women's finery are here 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 49 

to appear in a genuinely English' 
outfit. 

The American woman has not the 
same contempt for the English wom- 
an 's manner of dress that the Amer- 
ican man entertains for French styles, 
but she, being of a livelier imagina- 
tion, selects from England what suits 
her needs and then wisely waits for 
Paris to give her le dernier mot in 
the matter of feminine fashions. Nor 
is she alone in thus looking to the 
French capital for guidance. The 
English women do it themselves. 
They frankly admit the supremacy of 
French taste, and they acknowledge 
the shortcomings of their own. 

Speaking of English women's taste 



50 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

in dress brings us to their renowned 
" tailor made." With these, as with 

men's garments, the cut 
Tailor-made ig gomewhat different 
Gowns 

from ours. English 

women do not call a suit a success 
unless it really fits their figures, and 
the unlovely results sometimes ar- 
rived at may therefore be less the 
tailor's fault than his model's. The 
English tailors do good work, and 
their stuffs are certainly of the best. 
The tweeds, serges and mixtures to be 
had in London, Edinburgh and Dublin 
cannot be surpassed in quality and 
durability. 

In Dublin can be found the cele- 
brated homespun made by the Irish 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 51 

peasants, under the administration of 
the Irish Home Industries Associa- 
tion. No woven material wears like it, 
and it can be had now, thanks to the 
oversight of the society, in a large and 
excellent variety of colors, other than 
that peculiar British green by which 
an English tourist is recognized any- 
where on earth. It is this same so- 
ciety which has revived lace making 
in Ireland, thus providing for the im- 
provident poor a remunerative occu- 
pation, and incidentally starting a 
vogue for their pretty and serviceable 
laces which has continued now 
through a good many seasons. 

There was a time when French 
women would have scorned to wear so 



52 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

rigid a garment as a tailor-made suit, 
and the short walking skirt was quite 
without the scope of their conception. 
English ideas have colored French 
fashions at least to the extent that all 
garments for outdoor use have been 
made serviceable rather than friv- 
olous. The contrast of an English 
woman and a French one at an after- 
noon tea may not be in favor of the 
English woman, but make the same 
comparison on a Swiss mountain ex- 
pedition and the English woman wins. 
She is, like her brother, essentially an 
outdoor person, and for her tramps 
and her games she dresses sensibly 
and appropriately. 
For walking a skirt is certainly 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 53 

more suitable worn short rather than 
with a train that mnst be held up 
French fashion. Very reluctantly the 
French woman has come to concede 
this important point, and so the trot- 
tense is now to be had in France. It 
is the walking skirt shorn of its train. 
With the coming of the tailor-made to 
France came also the tailors to make 
them, and by a curious anomaly Eng- 
lish tailor-made suits may now be 
found in Paris of a more satisfactory 
style and cut than those of London. 
The prices are higher, but even at that 
less than at home, and these English 
tailors of Paris, thanks to their 
French women helpers, do contrive to 
give to even a plain walking suit a 



54 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

certain French cachet, an arrange- 
ment of bnttons here, of braids there, 
an insert of Eastern embroidery, per- 
haps, or of good old lace, the little 
something which makes for distinc- 
tion in a garment, and which Amer- 
ican women are quick to recognize. 
Many good tailoring establishments 
are to be found in the Opera quarter, 
but it is well, of course, to be recom- 
mended to a house by some resident 
of Paris. The tourists ' agents usually 
keep a list of reliable firms for their 
patrons, and hotel and pension pro- 
prietors are generally prepared to 
supply such information to their 
guests. Better still is to be provided 
with a card from a friend who has 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 55 

already tried a tailor or dressmaker. 
Americans have a way of passing on 
such information among each other 
which is very helpful to the tourist 
novice. 

Although Paris has for long held 
the reputation, and justly, of satisfy- 
ing every desire of the 

trans feminine heart, it is by 

Department 

Stores no means an eas 7 pl ace 

for the uninitiated to 

shop in. But then no city's shops 
make their special advantages ob- 
vious all at once, even in our own 
country. A good American bishop, 
during a stay in Paris, was asked 
by a caller at his hotel where his 
wife was. " She's gone," he said, 



56 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

" to the Bon Marche — I believe for 
some darning cotton! " As the lady's 
shopping extravagances in Paris were 
causing the reverend gentleman some 
concern, he smiled incredulously as he 
gave this information. No doubt 
many other things than darning cotton 
were brought back from that partic- 
ular shopping expedition, yet it is a 
fact that the large balls of darning- 
cotton sold at the Bon Marche have 
a certain renown among frequent vis- 
itors to Paris, who as inevitably sup- 
ply themselves with this homely com- 
modity as with the needles of the 
Trois Quartiers. 

The Paris department stores are, 
like the small shops of London, a bit 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 57 

disorderly to an American eye, and 
the desired article is not always easy 
to find. Many a disgusted American 
lady, after her first visit to the Bon 
Marche, will declare it " a much over- 
rated place.' ' A further acquaint- 
ance with its stock and its possibili- 
ties may give these hasty critics a 
better opinion of this dean of all de- 
partment stores, for it was the very 
first of these distinctly modern estab- 
lishments, and all later " empori- 
ums " and " store cities " owe their 
existence to the inspiration of one 
man, the great Boucicault, whose 
memory is revered by all the army of 
workers at the Bon Marche. 

Parisians consider its styles less 



58 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

chic than those of some of the other 
big stores, but it has built up a repu- 
tation for reliability that is a guar- 
antee for everything sold there. Un- 
derclothing of all sorts, stockings, 
handkerchiefs and gloves are all good 
and cheap at the Bon Marche. They 
keep a really enormous variety of 
gloves at prices ranging from one 
franc fifty up. A good many people 
prefer French gloves to those made in 
England. They are more soft and 
flexible, and they usually fit the hand 
more smoothly. While they do not 
wear as well, they are cheap enough 
to make the balance even. Both men 
and women in France still wear the 
light-weight gloves, and even the re- 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 59 
cent sporting craze has not induced 
French men to adopt the heavier Eng- 
lish walking gloves. 

The gloves at most of the large 
stores are to be depended on, but any- 
one who wishes a glove 
Bargain with a « marque," that 

Dai/ • « n 

in Paris 1S one of the wdl " 

known makes, can go to 

Perrin's, in the Avenne de l'Opera. 
This store has a sale every Friday 
when odd sizes are marked much be- 
low their usual sale price. Friday, in 
all the stores of Paris, is bargain day, 
and then many an occasion may be 
found for the looking. The French 
way of displaying table after table of 
coupons helps the shopper. Often 



60 . A SHOPPING GUIDE 

lovely cut pieces of silks and of trim- 
mings are sold for almost nothing on 
a Friday — things which can later be 
combined into a French " creation." 
A bit of warning advice may be in- 
serted here for the American woman 
shopper who believes that all French 
styles must needs be extreme. The 
absolutely sensational things now and 
then launched by the big French 
dressmakers are nothing but adver- 
tisements, and they are never worn 
by French ladies, only by the con- 
spicuous Parisian beauties of doubt- 
ful reputation, who are hired to dis- 
play the novelties at some public 
function like the spring races at 
Auteuil or Longchamp. While it may 




. - -.-.- ,.- ^ . . 

Copyright by Stereo-Travel Co. 

The broad Avenue de l'Opera contains the largest 
department stores and jewelry shops. Here also 
are found oculists and photo-developing places 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 61 

be a temptation to copy a startling 
gown or hat, it is really the part of 
wisdom to select instead the quieter 
modes, which are just as artistic and 
more appropriate, and which lead to 
no embarrassing ambiguity as to the 
social classification of a good-look- 
ing, well-dressed American woman. 
Neither does any lady in France wear 
yellow. That is a color preempted 
by the demi-mondaines , and allowed 
them. Nor is it safe to wear natural 
flowers despite their abundance and 
low cost. 

The young woman who has decided 
to buy her trousseau in Paris will be 
surprised to find the lesser priced gar- 
ments, even when elaborately hand 



62 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

embroidered, made of a coarse cotton 
cloth quite unfamiliar to us. Only 
the very expensive things are made 
of the lawn and batiste we are accus- 
tomed to think of as French. The 
reason for this usage is purely eco- 
nomical. French laundries have an 
unpleasant way of washing with 
chemicals, which soon rot the delicate 
fabrics ; hence, the substitution of the 
stout cloth which stands the wear. 

No cheap machine-made garments 

are as good in France as those sold 

in America. The poor 

P rPYlclfb 

t, 7 . , . of France, unlike the 
Embroideries 

republican Americans, 
do not expect to dress like the rich, 
and the clothing made for them makes 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 63 

no attempt to copy in less expensive 
materials the models of the wealthy 
and fashionable. It is these things, 
the luxuries, that cost in France rela- 
tively little. You can find a frilly, 
colored underskirt of good cut and 
pretty material for a song. Em- 
broidery is shamefully cheap. Occa- 
sionally very good blouses are sold at 
bargain prices. For twenty francs 
you can find a dress waist that at 
home might cost as many dollars. 

The department store known as the 
Galeries Lafayette is a good place to 
look for bargain blouses. This estab- 
lishment is reputed to have a patron- 
age among the Parisian women who 
prefer to dress conspicuously, but its 



64 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

styles are no less good for that, and 
its prices are not too high. The lin- 
gerie there is often beautiful, and 
ready-made dresses are to be had in 
every sort of material and of every 
degree of elaboration. 

As the Parisians go to the Bon 
Marche for their substantial things 
and to the Louvre Magasins for dress 
materials, they go to Printemps for 
hat and dress trimmings. There is 
another large department store, in a 
somewhat out-of-the-way quarter, the 
Samaritaine, which the economical 
French woman will occasionally visit 
surreptitiously, for it is considered a 
trifle declasse to deal there. Its stock 
is large, however, and really good 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 65 

clothes bargains can now and then 
be found there. Just across the 
street is a place to which men go for 
ready-made clothes, men who are not 
too particular as to the fit of their 
garments. It is La Belle Jardiniere, 
and it is the shop par excellence at 
which to buy servants' liveries, if by 
chance anyone visiting Paris has such 
a need. 

There are many other lesser de- 
partment stores in Paris, scarcely 
larger some of them than a single 
American store would be, but yet of- 
fering the usual assortment of things 
to wear and of articles for the home. 
The little Trois Quartiers, across the 
Boulevard from the Madeleine, sells 



66 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

some lovely upholstering fabrics. But 

it is mainly patronized for its articles 

de Paris, or small novelties, toilet 

things, letter paper boxes, bags and 

the pretty trifles every woman looks 

for to take home from Paris. 

The American, going about Paris 

for the first time, is struck with the 

picturesque and ambig- 
Picturesque nong nameg of aU thege 
Names of 
Shops shops. Hardly one of 

them is given the name 

of its owner or its founder. Paris 

streets are full of such quaint titles 

as The Blue Dwarf, The Unbreakable 

Baby, The Fairy Finger, The Little 

Saint Thomas. There seems to be an 

instinctive shrinking in the French 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 67 

mind from the sort of advertising 
publicity Americans are used to. A 
man may be a merchant prince, with 
a wonderful gift for organizing and 
conducting a huge business, and yet 
the world at large, which buys lav- 
ishly at his establishment, will never 
hear of him until he dies and leaves 
a magnificent collection of pictures to 
the Louvre. 

The most conspicuous evidence of 
French taste is to be seen in the hats 
of Paris. There is that about them 
which immediately dissatisfies the 
woman from elsewhere with her most 
costly headgear. They are not ex- 
orbitantly expensive, either. The lit- 
tle Eue St. Honore and the Avenue 



68 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

de 1 'Opera are dotted with small mil- 
linery shops whose obliging sales- 
women will shower attentions upon 
you while you try on one after the 
other of their creations. Most of 
them speak English very prettily, and 
they are quite willing to make up 
your own materials for you after one 
of their models, doctoring your feath- 
ers if they are malade, and trans- 
forming your velvets and ribbons to 
an unrecognizable freshness. 

The French are the most painstak- 
ing workers conceivable, and any 
woman traveler who has time to take 
advantage of this trait may have a 
new wardrobe made from an old one 
at very little expense. A French 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 69 

dressmaker never despises anything 
worn ; her imagination at once sets to 
work to figure out how the remnants 
can he utilized with a creditable re- 
sult. 

Dyeing is a thing they do superla- 
tively well in Paris. Give a French 
dyer a sample of any tint, no matter 
how subtle, and he will match it abso- 
lutely. This work, as well as dry 
cleaning, is very inexpensive in 
France — so cheap, in fact, that it is 
often substituted for the more ex- 
pensive and destructive laundering. 
It is, however, something of a shock 
to see pajamas and silk union suits 
displayed in a cleaning house win- 
dow. 



70 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

The same national quality which 
makes the French careful cleaners 

makes them good mend- 
Cleaning erg also Any traveler 

and 
Mendmg who has apparently 

hopelessly torn a good 
dress or suit has only to stow it away 
in the bottom of a trunk until Paris 
is reached. Then he must ask where 
he can find an establishment where 
"one does the stoppage." There are 
hundreds of them in Paris, and their 
business is invisible mending. An 
American gentleman once arrived in 
Paris in despair because his frock 
coat had had a hole rubbed in one of 
the shoulder breadths by a peg in his 
steamer stateroom during an uncom- 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 71 

monly rough, crossing. His tailor told 
him it would be useless to try to 
match the broadcloth. " But," he 
added encouragingly, ' ' we '11 have the 
hole stopped." This they did, so 
cleverly that it was impossible after- 
ward to find where it had been. 

Furs are of an unbelievable cheap- 
ness in Paris, and their remaking and 
renovating is another specialty of 
French workers. There are plenty of 
good small fur houses, whose ad- 
dresses can be had through the 
agencies. You may not recognize a 
fur under its French name even when 
the fur people think they are talking 
English. Skunk, for example, so 
fashionable last season, becomes 



72 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

slcung in France, and with no inten- 
tion of Frenchifying the name, either. 

If a tourist has plenty of money to 
spend, then the place to shop in Paris 
is certainly the Place Vendome dis- 
trict, for that is the very heart of the 
fashion quarter, where styles are 
created and where everything orig- 
inal in Paris finds its birth, to be 
echoed and reechoed later throughout 
the fashionable world, until it is 
cheapened and overworked to its 
logical ending. 

The first veiled evening dress ap- 
peared in a Eue Castiglioni shop win- 
dow in Paris just before the Monte 
Carlo season in 1908. This pretty 
idea has been copied and adapted, and 







o § 

p 1 13 



2 » 
^ 08* 

§ s 

® C3 

a 3 

i I 

2 S M 
►» o 

•s •§ g 

^ in "2 
eg —i -^ 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 73 

its end is not even yet. The present 

craze for Oriental embroideries and 

headings began in Paris in that same 

year. American dressmakers are 

using these trimmings lavishly now, 

four years after France introduced 

them. So, in a way, it is cheap to buy 

the expensive new things in France. 

They do not so soon lose their vogue. 

There is one shopping district in 

Paris, which few tourists ever see, 

or seeing, really under- 

stand ; yet it is very in- 
Model 
Shovs timately Parisian, and 

with a French shopping 
guide, or even a slight knowledge of 
the language, it may be visited profita- 
bly and entertainingly by the woman 



74 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

looking for clothes suggestions. 
This is the small Eue de Provence and 
its adjacent streets, just a step from 
the more frequented and pretentious 
shopping territory. This narrow 
thoroughfare is given over to a pe- 
culiarly French set of second-hand 
shops. They are places where 
" model gowns " are sold, but models 
of a half season or so back. These 
are not dresses that have been worn, 
only those which have been displayed 
and tried on in the exclusive cou- 
turiers until all their freshness has 
gone, and the fashionable establish- 
ments that created them and which 
must keep well ahead of the styles, 
can no longer afford to give up room 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 75 

to them. Ingenious Americans not 
infrequently go home wonderfully 
gowned, thanks to these little clearing 
houses, and the thoroughness of 
French cleaning and freshening 
methods. 

Despite French receptivity which 
admired and imitated the busi- 
ness sagacity of the 

An Artist Bon Marc ^» s founder, 

with 

Flowers Paris, like London, still 

clings to its exclusive 

small shops, those whose proprietors 

are all artists, each in his way; men 

and women who enter into the making 

of a gown or a hat with the same rare 

enthusiasm which creates a picture or 

a poem. The French have come de- 



76 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

servedly by their artistic reputation. 
They love work for its own sake, and 
that trait is the secret of their com- 
mercial success. It is not that they 
do not appreciate the returns their 
work brings in. They are canny 
enough in their business dealings, but 
they love to work — above all, to 
create. In the heart of Paris there is 
a florist who is as much an artist as 
if he worked with paint instead of 
with flowers. He creates wonderful 
decorations for all sorts of functions, 
for dinners, for receptions, for wed- 
dings, arrangements that are given 
prizes at the annual flower shows of 
the Cours la Eeine. He was once 
asked by an admiring American why 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 77 

lie did not go to New York and make 
his fortune. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders in disdain. " Why should I go 
to New York to make money? " he 
asked. " I have money enough here; 
and there, you are so rich, and so ex- 
travagant! Perhaps you would not 
like my work, if you saw it there, and 
then I should have only cares and 
troubles. No, I stay in my own coun- 
try, where they know me, and under- 
stand me, and where I make enough 
for my needs.' ' That certainly was 
the artist who spoke, although com- 
mercially he is called a florist. Did 
ever the born business man admit 
that he " made enough for his 
needs "? 



78 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

Good jewelry in Paris is costly 
enough, but very artistic. The jew- 
elers of the Eue de la Paix are all 
artists in their tastes and their ideas. 
Their work is exhibited each year at 
the Salons. In one of the fine shops 
of that glittering street may be seen, 
in a beautifully lighted inner room, as 
fine a private collection of small jade 
ornaments as there is in existence. 
The collection was made for his own 
pleasure by one of the members of the 
firm, who is also an amateur of old 
mounts. Such tendencies must inevi- 
tably tell on the modern work done 
by this house. The cheap Parisian 
jewelry shares with the good the dis- 
tinction of attractive settings. The 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 79 

little shops of the Bue de Eivoli ar- 
cade are an unfailing pleasure to look 
at, even though their inexpensive 
wares are but imitations of the costly 
products in the nearby quarter. 

What Paris has to offer a masculine 
shopper is, of course, little as com- 
pared with its feminine finery. Still, 
there are seasoned globe-trotters who 
always buy their shirts on the Grands 
Boulevards, the variety of materials 
being excellent, they maintain. There 
is one pretentious establishment in 
the Eue de la Paix which makes all 
sorts of men's things to order. " To 
be sure, you get stung,' ' once re- 
marked an American who had patron- 
ized the place, " but you've ties no 



80 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

one can duplicate and shirts of stuffs 
you never see anywhere else." So if 
that is what anyone wants, Paris can 
provide it. 

It is well to be wary of stuffs in 
France. The best woolens used for 

suits and dresses there 

French , , , .. , , 

q. jr are acknowledged to be 

either Scotch or Eng- 
lish. Silks, of course, are good; 
though the French say they are less 
good than they used to be. Linens 
are very cheap, and so are the pretty 
lawns and batistes of French make. 
Trimmings, too, of all sorts, are 
Parisian specialties. Laces being 
made by the peasants, who have not 
yet learned to rate their hand work 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 81 

at Arts and Crafts prices, are very 

reasonable. 

Although shopping in Paris is an 

exhilarating and highly entertaining 

part of all tourists' 

The duties, it is quite as fa- 

Gastronome 

in Paris tiguing as an y arduous 

study of cathedrals 
could be. Therefore it is invariably 
associated in the traveling mind with 
another pleasurable occupation, that 
of eating. Everyone expects to have 
an opportunity, while in Paris, to 
sample some genuinely French cook- 
ing, and most people do. Whether 
they ever taste the best depends on 
their opportunities, and somewhat on 
their understanding of what sorts of 



82 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

eating houses are open to travelers in 
the French capital. 

Enough has been written on this 
all-engrossing subject by American 
and English people who have become 
converts to French culinary tastes 
and standards for each traveler to 
make some sort of an intelligent se- 
lection for himself. Most of the es- 
tablishments whose reputations date, 
not merely from a preceding genera- 
tion, but from some centuries back — 
like Frederic's, for example — are 
known to every visitor to Paris. A 
duck dinner there is always included 
in the schedule of things to be done in 
Paris, just as a filet of sole luncheon 
must be checked off at Marguery's. 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 83 

The larger, more modern and more 
pretentious restaurants of the Opera 
and Madeleine quarters are for tout 
le monde. Anyone can go to them for 
any meal, except a woman, or women 
alone, which is perhaps trying to a 
group of independent Americans, es- 
pecially feminine wage earners, who 
have gayly gone about saving money 
for a European trip in the complete st 
confidence that the whole world is 
theirs and that they can go anywhere 
they choose abroad as at home. 

In general they can, not because the 
Feministe movement is sufficiently 
far along on the Continent to give 
them their " rights,' ' nor yet because 
either the Latin, the Teuton or the 



84 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

Slav is naturally chivalrous, but sim- 
ply because they are Americans. To 

that little-comprehend- 

The Woman , ed race mueh ig for . 

and the 

(j a f£ given, because of its 

fabulous wealth and 
known eccentricities. If the Amer- 
ican woman traveler wishes to take 
advantage of a sort of contemptuous 
French tolerance, she may go to the 
large cafes of an evening, unescorted. 
Some of the more daring young 
women art students in Paris do it, 
and by so doing only succeed in con- 
firming the suspicion that the morals 
of all art students are none of the 
best. It would be utterly impossible 
to convince a French man, or for that 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 85 

matter a French woman, that any 
young woman who would visit a cafe 
at night, without a husband or a 
brother to protect her, had been prop- 
erly brought up. Such a thing is 
never done by a French woman of 
good family ; therefore, the rule is in- 
exorable, that no woman of breeding 
of any race would do it. Generally 
speaking, it scarcely pays to run 
counter to national prejudices so 
strong as is this one. 

There are some fairly inconspicu- 
ous restaurants, serving good meals, 
where women can and often do go, in 
groups for luncheon. The Duvals sat- 
isfy many people, but they are dull 
and not very interesting. The Bras- 



86 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

serie Universelle, in the Avenue de 
1 'Opera, has more real French 
" color." This establishment is fa- 
mous for the number, variety and 
cheapness of its hors d'oeuvres. It is 
extremely popular with French busi- 
ness men who are within reach at 
noon. As most French people lunch 
promptly at twelve o 'clock, that is the 
crowded time there. Shoppers who 
can wait for lunch until one will have 
a more comfortable time and receive 
better service. 

There is a small restaurant in the 
Eue Saint Honore, now known as 
Voisin's, which, though it is fre- 
quented at night by theatrical people, 
is quiet enough at the lunch hour. It 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 87 

is not cheap, but the cooking is of the 
first order. A specialty of the house 
is a pancake, or crepe, served in burn- 
ing rum. This delicacy is not only 
spectacular, but very good. 

During the spring and summer, it 
is quite worth while to break a shop- 
ping day by driving out 

Some Paris , „ . T ,, . . 

„ ,, to one of the attractive 

Cafes 

restaurants in the Bois 
de Boulogne. There are several of 
them, and none is overcrowded at 
noon. Of them all the Pre-Catelan 
and Armenonville are the most fash- 
ionable and consequently the most 
expensive. The small Cascade res- 
taurant is less conspicuous, and the 
cooking is almost equally good. 



88 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

The Hermitage, at the very end of 
the Seine boat line, and not far from 
the famous Longehamp race track, is 
a beautiful and restful place to lunch. 
It is not apt to be overrun with 
patronage, even at night, for its 
prices are high. 

The American woman tourist who 
has already, or has acquired in Eng- 
land, the afternoon tea 
The Invasion haMt? may com f rtably 
of the 

Tea Habit feel that she is doin 3 
absolutely the correct 

thing by continuing to indulge it in 
France, for the afternoon tea now uni- 
versally replaces the little French 
gouter by which all French people, 
men, women and children, were wont 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 89 

to break the long wait from a twelve 
o'clock lunch until an eight o'clock 
dinner. The French society lady 
would stop in the midst of her shop- 
ping or calling at one of the innumer- 
able patisseries where are sold such 
delectable tiny tarts, eclairs and petit 
fours. One or two of these cakes with 
a glass of Madeira constituted the 
gouter. Now, these same ladies, who 
aspire to follow the latest dictates of 
fashion, go instead to one of the 
many tea rooms which have sprung 
up here and there in the popular 
quarters, and they drink strong Eng- 
lish tea and eat plum cake with a 
great air of satisfaction. It is a 
question if many of them really like 



90 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

the English drink. The French have 
always regarded any brew as a 
tisane, only good for medicinal pur- 
poses: bnt it is considered chic to 
drink tea in the late afternoon, so the 
demand for it has become so universal 
that all the patisseries and most of 
the cafes serve it. It is apparent, 
however, that the French do not all 
comprehend the significance of the in- 
novation, as one may gather from a 
sign conspicuously displayed in a 
cafe near the Opera which reads " a 
4 heures five o'clock tea/' 

A long time ago, an English book 
store on the Eue de Rivoli, in order 
to accommodate its patrons, set up 
two tea tables behind a screen at the 




Copyright by Stereo- Travel Co. 

Antiques and objects of art, books and stationery — 
these are the main commodities on the Rue Rivoli; 
but there are some dainty handkerchief and lin- 
gerie shops, and the Redfern establishment is here 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 91 

back of the shop. Little by little their 
patronage grew and presently a full- 
fledged tea room was established in an 
entresol upstairs — the first in Paris. 
That was the beginning of the revo- 
lutionary movement. It did not take 
long for other enterprising shop- 
keepers to realize that the large Eng- 
lish-speaking colony in Paris would 
patronize attractive tea rooms, if any 
were provided for their use. So the 
establishments have grown and multi- 
plied, and with them the institution 
of afternoon tea drinking as well. 
Some of the tea shops, like Colom- 
bin's, make no pretense at changing 
their interior arrangements or dec- 
orations to suit the new business. 



92 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

This is just a bake shop, but it is one 
of the most fashionable tea rooms in 
Paris. During the spring season, 
from four o'clock to five, the narrow 
Eue Cambon is so crowded with car- 
riages and automobiles that traffic is 
interfered with; and yet the tea 
served at Colombin's is of a very non- 
descript variety. It might be any- 
thing almost — steeped straw, even — 
but the cakes are delicious. 

The original Paris tea room is near 
by. It has changed its name and its 
decoration, but it still maintains its 
reading-room and its general English 
air. The Lipton tea rooms are much 
more decorated, but no more ex- 
pensive. They are in the Boulevard 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 93 

Haussmann. At Eumpelmayer 's, in 
the Eue de Eivoli, one sees perhaps 
the best dressed assemblage, except it 
may be that which gathers at the 
fashionable Hotel Eitz at tea time. 
Eumpelmayer 's seems to be as much a 
favorite place of gouter for French 
men of high society as for women, 
and it is quite the usual thing to see 
a well-dressed man enjoying alone 
there his cup of tea and plate of cakes. 
Many of the smaller tea rooms now 
serve light lunches of eggs, ham, buns, 
muffins and tea or chocolate. There 
are still others which serve a table 
d'hote lunch at a prix fixe, and a good 
substantial price it generally is; but 
then these meals are invariably ex- 



94 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

cellent and daintily served, two quali- 
fications which may recommend them 
to a jaded Parisian appetite of the 
sort which " digest no more without 
Vichy.' ' 

Naturally, with competition in the 

tea-room field, it has been necessary 

for some of these shops 

Hot Cakes to spe cialize in order to 
and Hot 

Apple Pie draw a Particular pat- 
ronage. So it tran- 
spires that there is one small shop not 
far from the Bon Marche, where the 
homesick American may eat Lady 
Baltimore cake, the real article. An 
English tea house near Colombin's 
advertises hot cakes and hot apple 
pie. There is another shop in the 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 95 

Opera quarter whose specialty is 
American ice-cream soda served at a 
counter where one sits, American 
fashion, on a high stool. It is curious 
to observe how very uncomfortable 
this method of taking refreshments 
— so natural and appropriate in the 
hurry and bustle of an American city 
— can seem, transplanted thus into an- 
other setting, where any repast, even 
the simplest, is treated with respect. 
But these familiar eatables are not 
after all what the tourist, unless he 
happens to tire of dishes whose names 
he cannot read and whose ingredients 
he cannot detect, has crossed the ocean 
to get. Nor do they in any way ex- 
press the race preferences of the 



96 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

French. They are as obviously for- 
eign to their setting as are the small 
French and Italian restaurants of the 
American cities, places diligently 
sought out by the would-be Bohemian 
in much the same spirit which has 
prompted the French to adopt the 
afternoon tea. 

Not every woman tourist knows 
that lingerie is just as cheap at 
Brussels, and often quite as pretty, 
as at Paris. In this particular at 
least Brussels lives up to her nick- 
name of " Little Paris." There are 
some excellent dressmaking establish- 
ments, too, at Brussels, and the women 
of nearby countries are quite as apt 
to go there for their gowns as to 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 97 

Paris. Laces everyone expects to get 
at Brussels, but it is not always at 
the shops that the best bargains are 
found. Many of the pension proprie- 
tors have affiliations with the con- 
vents, where most of the lace-making 
is done, and they will gladly help their 
guests to find the veil or robe they 
are looking for, thereby saving some 
part, at least, of the middleman's 
profit. 

There are some of the cities of 
Switzerland where wonderful em- 
broidery is to be found, 
Values in i aborioU8ly worked b 
Other J y 

Countries the nuns * n does not 
pay, however, to buy 

anything made up in Switzerland, for 



98 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

the taste in dress of the native 
workers is more German than French. 
Swiss silks are good and substantial, 
and at Zurich can be bought an ex- 
cellent quality of silk and lisle stock- 
ings for as little as forty cents a pair. 
In general, however, the tourist will 
find little in Switzerland to carry 
away but the carved wood souvenirs 
of the several towns he has visited. 

Italy, too, is a land for souvenir- 
hunters, although it has its practical 
modern offerings as well, for Northern 
Italy is fast gaining rank as an in- 
dustrial country. Milan and Turin 
are both thriving cities, each selling 
much the same commodities as one 
finds elsewhere in Europe. Italian 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 99 

women are entirely Paris influenced 
in the matter of dress, but the men, 
curiously enough, look more Ameri- 
can than any other Europeans, per- 
haps because many of them have been 
to America for longer or shorter 
periods and they prefer the loose 
American sack suit and the sensible 
shoes to the braid-trimmed suits and 
pointed toes of the Parisian dandy, 
or the rough tweed of the English- 
men. 

Florence, they say, has some good, 
cheap dressmakers, but it would re- 
quire a residence there of some length 
to profit by that advantage. In a 
city with so many historic monuments 
and such wonderful galleries, it really 



100 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

would scarcely pay to stop sight-see- 
ing to visit a dressmaker. Every 
tourist goes to the market stalls to 
buy the pretty, braided hats. They 
make good and inexpensive presents, 
and they trim up nicely for summer 
wear, being graceful and made in 
delicate colorings. Then, too, the 
Florentine cheap gloves are a com- 
fort — the kid is so soft; and though 
they do not wear very long, at twenty 
cents the pair anyone can afford an 
ample supply. A dozen fresh white 
kid gloves for two dollars and a half 
is not a purchase one can make every- 
where. 

There is one bit of shopping which 
the tourist will do well not to neglect, 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 101 

no matter where lie travels. That is 
the particular edible product of each 

city he visits, for there 

Edible . , . ,, n 1 

n , . 7 ., , is not one m the whole 
Specializes 

of Europe but has 
its specialite. You can begin 
with Devonshire cream, if you are 
coming from England. You would 
be sorry to miss that delectable stuff. 
At some future time, too, you will 
be glad to remember that you have 
tasted Southdown mutton. 

France is especially rich in culinary 
specialties. In some districts they 
are but trifles, like the macaroons of 
Amiens and the Sucre d'orge of 
Tours. Again, it may be a succulent 
sausage or a savory cheese for which 



102 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

a city or a department is noted. If 
you should spend a Sunday at Trou- 
ville you must eat good pont Veveque, 
made near by. Drink cider in Nor- 
mandy and Brittany and champagne 
in the Champagne country. When 
you are in the Lorraine, you must 
sample the delicious Bar-le-Duc pre- 
serves made there, and so on. 

In Switzerland, sweet chocolate is 
a national product and a definite 
article of diet — very often on moun- 
tain climbs a meal! The little land 
of pleasure has also won a consider- 
able renown through its goat cheeses 
and some of its breads and cakes. 
You can find out for the asking what 
the people of each country like best to 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 103 

eat, and you will arrive at a shade 
more local color perhaps by sampling 
it. 

A word now abont the actual busi- 
ness of buying in Europe. Ameri- 
cans have for so long been fed on 
the belief that everything in Europe 
is so very much cheaper than it is 
at home that the tourist on his first 
trip over is apt to feel himself robbed 
at every turn, if he is obliged to part 
with more money on his travels than 
he had counted upon. Europe was 
once cheap to travel in, but the trav- 
elers themselves, and the easier 
methods of getting about, have 
" changed all that." The novice will 
not find traveling cheap, not because 



104 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

he is being robbed, but because his 
very inexperience obliges him to 
travel where and in the way that 
others do — the others who have set 
the scale of prices asked and tips ex- 
pected. The unspoiled districts, as 
yet not uncomfortably affected by the 
universal l i higher cost of living, ' ' are 
only for the initiated. 

The newcomer to Europe, there- 
fore, may go on his way grumbling, 
giving tips often as ridiculously 
small as large, through his ignorance 
of the language and of the money 
values ; wondering all the while at the 
dissatisfaction he leaves in his trail, 
and finally dismissing the matter by 
summing up the inhabitants of all 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 105 

Europe as a " pack of thieves,' ' an 
accusation both untrue and unmerited. 
Another source of national misun- 
derstanding lies in the fact that 
the average traveling 

foreign American is suspicious 

Commercial . 

Politeness of forei ^ n commercial 
politeness. He con- 
strues it to mean only one thing, an- 
other trap to catch his careful sav- 
ings. Americans are genial but sel- 
dom urbane, and they approach a 
business transaction in quite another 
manner than that required at a social 
function. Not so the European, 
above all the Latin. His manners 
are born with him, and he can never 
shake them off. The ready " par- 



106 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

don " of the Frenchman does not 
change its inflection, no matter where 
it is used, in the street, in a shop, in 
a drawing-room; and he conld no 
more reduce the business of buying 
and selling to the curt, impersonal 
basis of the American than he could 
change his accent. The Latin is by 
instinct suave and ingratiating, and 
he does not consider his politeness 
wasted on a customer, even if he does 
not make a sale. Shopping in France 
and Italy, therefore, takes on quite 
a gala air. It is really impossible to 
be brusque with a smiling French 
saleswoman who enthusiastically 
enumerates your good points as ac- 
cented by the garment she wishes to 



SHOPPING IN PARIS 107 

sell you. There are American women 
who are " fussed " by so much atten- 
tion, and who find the " Bon jour " 
on entering and leaving a store only 
annoying and superfluous. It is wise, 
however, to fall into the Latin habits 
when one is dealing with Latins. The 
little courtesies cost nothing and they 
help to oil the machinery of inter- 
national intercourse. 

Another somewhat misunderstood 
phase of foreign buying is that which 
is called bargaining. In the East it 
is still the legitimate way of getting 
what you want, but in the large cities 
of Europe the prix fixe is coming 
more and more to be the universal 
rule. Certainly no one would think 



108 A SHOPPING GUIDE 

of bargaining in a department store. 
To readjust successfully a given 
price, the dealings must be between 
proprietor and buyer, and, except in 
very small establishments, such a con- 
dition is impossible. Consequently 
the tourist will do well to feel his way 
before he attempts the un-American 
pastime of juggling with the price of 
an article offered him for sale. 



JUL 9 W2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





014 231 550 6 • 




